La Cocina

Now that I have a new job and it feels like this HUGE weight has been lifted off of me, things are starting to return to center. Things that felt stressful are feeling good again. Cooking felt like such a chore when all my time off was barely enough time to recover from such a stressful job. I was always rushing in the kitchen, rather than enjoying the process - and it's the process of measuring, chopping, mixing, stirring, waiting, contemplating that I so love about cooking and preparing food. That feeling was just not present when I was consumed with work-related anxiety. So it's no wonder with a job that feels more connected to my core values that I am rediscovering the joy in things such as cooking.

I'm loving the color and smell of things in my kitchen. I'm loving taking my time - Sunday I spent hours in the kitchen. I love having music on in the background or preparing a new recipe in complete silence. I am reminded of my time as a naturalist on a bird sanctuary where our most core lesson with the kids was the five senses and experiencing the world with a sense of wonder through sight-sound-smell-taste-touch. This feels alive and well in the kitchen lately.

Yesterday I had this brilliant idea to add chopped up chocolate-covered pretzels to my favorite oatmeal-flax cookie recipe and they are heavenly!

Creativity and joy can flourish when there is true space for it.

A Pie Story - In Photos

It was a beautiful night.

So I decided to make a pie. Obviously.

Check out my first ever homemade pie crust, crimped edges (sorta), and decorative vents!




Drum-roll please............

rabbit, rabbit, rabbit

The first day of July.

I started the day by saying out-loud: "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit."

It's good luck you see. The kids at the farm taught me to start each new month by saying these words. The key is to have no other words leave your mouth before you utter the magical "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit." Doing so will guarantee good things happen throughout said new month.

Though I can't say definitively how my months that started with "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" compare to months that started with other words, I can say that the months I have remembered to say these words I feel a certain, simple joy. Saying these words connects me to the farm, the kids, and my time there. I always chuckle that 7 years later (and not so far off from my 30th birthday) I still find it perfectly acceptable to honor this juvenile tradition.

Today, however, uttering these words connected me to the literal friend waiting for me outside my back door.

The rabbit, rabbit, rabbit that eats my garden, garden, garden.

I hope this month's chant isn't some sort of prophesy.

weekend!

I EARNED this weekend! Though next week promises to be even more stressful than this very stressful week, I am going to put that out of my head and focus on the following things:

-Helping out at my friend's burlesque-roller derby show tonight at one of the funkiest bars in town.

-Going to a new art show at the local art institute that is getting interesting reviews.

-Possibly taking a drive to a small town 1.5 hours from here to get a slice of pie at the best pie shop in the Midwest*. Road trip anyone? The ice is melting and I am ready to go on a mini adventure.

-Fish & chips with a new friend at the local pub.

-Garden planning!!

Go forth and do what makes you happiest. YOU have earned it!



*according to me.

Sunday, Sunday, Stream of Consciousness Sunday

The day, stream of consciousness and run-on style: 

Early wake-up, off to church through the bitter cold, I listened as our minister Justin urged us to explore the question of "callings" - our true purpose and life's work - a subject on my mind of late, then I drove in meditative silence until home was back on the horizon and joined my roommate in a deep scrub of the entire house as public radio programs drifted through the hallway. This was followed by a deliberate stroll through the local Co-op where, despite my deliberateness, I forgot the main ingredient for my lentil soup and so instead made my first-ever/inaugural batch of bran muffins and extremely garlicky hummus, while sipping on a very-special-treat-imbulse-buy Cream soda. When Joseph's name appeared on my phone, I rejoiced and taste-tested a warm bran muffin - slathered with overpriced (but delicious) butter - and listened as he too gave me something like a sermon on purpose and calling. I also learned he, like me, loves bran muffins and I made a mental note to finish up that care package ASAP - packed full of books and bran muffins. After our typical drawn out goodbye (which I cherish), I enjoyed a piece of toast with the same ridiculously good butter, some sliced-up radishes, and a pinch of good salt: a small dinner before a large dessert of frozen yogurt with Julia, followed by meditation at the nearby center, followed by a warm bath with ginger-geranium scented bubbles, where I looked upon three candles and a favorite picture of me standing solidly at the edge of the ocean at four, and listened as my house creaked and groaned ready for spring, ready for the windows to be thrust open, and the fresh air to blow through.

Sunday Evening Recap

This week I have managed to laugh a lot, reflect deeply, read many amazing pages of a few amazing books, have as much quality time alone as I had with people I care about, and also lounge around the necessary amount of time.

I end the weekend feeling nourished thanks to fantastic food (such as this smoothie that is really a milkshake) and a few poems that resonated with me deeply. This Adrienne Rich one comes via a Cheryl Strayed Dear Sugar column (which I have been devouring for weeks), and while I studied Adrienne Rich in a college poetry course, I don't think I "got" Adrienne Rich the way I "got" her this time around. I aim to visit a bookstore this week and pick up her entire collection, The Dream of a Common Language.

I also have been reading Mary Oliver's Red Bird, and transcribed another excerpt for my calligraphy homework. That said, I have been a calligraphy slacker all week, and in this transcription realized why our teacher insisted we make time every day to practice. If you don't, as this shows, things deteriorate  quickly.

That isn't even really calligraphy as much as it is someone writing slowly with a fancy nib pen and pot of ink. Oof.

The coming week I aim to visit the gym 3+ times (and the sauna), get my car fixed, make a new recipe, actually practice my calligraphy, and start plotting a spring/summer vacation.

Nothing too exciting, but glad to be feeling way less dreary than I was one week ago this time. Onward & upward!

the universe gave me reason to laugh

Just sitting at my new desk, blasting some Joni Mitchell (sometimes your ears want what your ears want), munching on a cream puff and staring out the window at my sad little Toyota Corolla, which is a bit worse for the wear after tonight. I'm sorry car, you've been so good to me and I treat you terribly.

After a spur-of-the-moment decision to see if a massage therapist I occasionally see had any openings tonight - and finding out she miraculously did - I rushed out to retrieve my car from where it was safely slumbering in the garage. After the recent winter storm, I stashed it there and have been managing fine by foot or bus, but tonight I had to get to my treat.yo.self. (version 3) appointment in downtown in under thirty minutes, and the car was my best option. 

My driveway is narrow in normal circumstances, but with all the snow we've had this winter, it's even more of a tight squeeze. For non-Northerners: there's nowhere to put the excess snow anymore, so the driveway is getting more narrow with each storm. It's one or two storms away from pointless.

When I opened the garage I groaned audibly at the crappy parking job I had done. My car was at an extremely odd angle - which is strange because my garage is also quite small, and my car just barely fits. So I'm not quite sure how I managed to get it parked in there so funny. Regardless, I knew it would take some skill to back out of my garage, and reverse (in cars or tractors) has never been my strength.

Which is how I ended up, in quick succession, slamming my side mirror into the side of the garage - snapping it nearly clean off - and then stuck in the snowbank alongside my driveway. Mirror down. Car stuck. In thirty seconds flat.

That does take skill.

And I had to laugh at myself as I treated my poor car terribly - rocking back and forth between reverse and drive until I unlodged myself. Once I got unstuck, and was safely in the road (fingers crossed no neighbors witnessed this absolute hot mess of driving), I barely even glanced at the sad mirror, hanging on by a single wire, cause I had to get to my massage.

And that folks, is how the modern gal prioritizes her self-care: her car and all other poor souls are at her mercy. Self-care: 1. Car and pride: 0.

That said, I drove the entire way to my massage laughing. Cause I am just that ridiculous. First my car window falls clean out two weeks ago (another story entirely), which I spend $700 to fix - and now I smack right into the side of my garage, thus requiring more money to go out of my self-care jar and into my annoying-unnecessary-expenses jar. But, I swear, I am chuckling.


In other news, this was a pretty fantastic discovery.

And in other, other news the Tegan & Sara show I went to last night was wonderful - it was so nice to be surrounded by a mostly queer community and to dance to some happy/sad/exuberant/emotive music. Fun despite running into a dude I dated for a hot second five years ago who, no joke, blurted out: "I'm married! And have a baby!" Nice to see you too, dude... Buh-bye, I gotta get my dance party on.

So, it's not all bad. The massage therapist said to me, post-massage: "Pain is a sign something needs to be adjusted." She was talking about my body, but I think it applies more broadly to life. So I'm adjusting, even if some adjustments put me right into a big bank of snow and snap my mirror in half. The thing about adjusting is you can always readjust from the point you have adjusted to.

Calligra-therapy

My calligraphy homework assignment this week was to end my practice of capital letters - exclusively in pencil -with a few lines of capital + lowercase, in ink.

There is nothing I needed more than to write out these 7 lines from a Mary Oliver poem.

Focusing on these words -writing each one so deliberately - I feel lighter somehow. Even if I didn't really take to heart the assignment - to focus on capital letters - I did take to heart the assignment I have given myself all day: which is to be easy on myself and others, and to examine the places of growth that are possible from points of pain. Mary Oliver knows these lessons well. I am happy to have sat with her words for the many-minutes it took me write this out. I have felt very humble the last few days, very flawed and human - and these too are experiences Mary Oliver knows intimately. Perhaps my entire calligraphy practice will be writing out the words of those wiser and more articulate than me, as a way to get closer to wisdom and peace in myself!

Also, my friend introduced me to a fantastic resource today, and for that I am also very grateful.

tidbits and pieces

Today at 3:15 I noticed a text on my phone that said: "I think you should skip work and come to [local theater] to see some short films with me at 4:30."

So I did.

I left on the 3:45 express bus and was only 15 minutes late.

I needed a little spontaneity. As I've been advised by someone wiser than me, I need to occasionally give less of myself to work and more of myself to everything else.

Other notables:

After 2 (of 6) calligraphy classes, I am starting to see (gradual) improvement:

Mom sent me a hilarious photo of my Dad (or his backside rather) tackling the snowstorm in Missouri, with Bea looking away (unimpressed).

My Mom loves getting unflattering photos of the members of our family...and then sharing them totally innocently as if the photo was truly candid and she wasn't cackling with glee as she took it. Fooling nobody, Mom.

Walkin'

New snow fell over the weekend, and with it came some simple realizations:

1. Snow-covered tree branches are in the top three of my all time favorite things.

2. Walks might be my number one.

Ironically enough, I was driving down a snowy street (ridiculously slow mind you), when I saw my friend Jack walking his two dogs. I stopped, rolled down my window, and hollered greetings at him (like any good neighbor would), and then continued on my way after we exchanged the proper number of pleasantries. And then I got really jealous about his walk. And then I realized how much I love walks. Which was followed by the thought that my favorite way to see any place - whether new or well known - is by foot. I am always down for a walking tour of a city.

As I turned the corner, I was suddenly in a corridor of snow-covered trees, and I was overcome with the desire to pull over my Toyota, hop out, and explore this place with my feet. Walks emcompass so much for me. Walks are incredibly romantic: I consider a walk as much a love poem as an actual love poem. I love taking walks as a way to mark seasonal shifts. Crunchy leaves underfoot, pink petals lining the sidewalk, the smell of lilacs perfuming the air, slick ice causing me to be extra careful. I like walking and talking with friends just as much as I like walking quietly with another person. I like creeping through back alleyways and peeking over fences at gardens. I will never find speed walking pleasurable or understandable. I wander, meander, mosey, and - very rarely & briefly - skip.

And I especially like seeing a familiar place in a new way.

Take for instance, another great walk related moment from this weekend.

My friend and I were babysitting the adorable three-year-old twins of another friend of ours. The kids ended up being delightful, but the new puppy was a royal terror. After his second pee on the carpet, I told my friend to stay put while I took Harris for a long walk. It was 10:30pm, the night was very dark and very cold, and I was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Or, at least, unfamiliar in these particular conditions.

I have never owned a dog and didn't grow up with one, so besides the occassional dog walk with a friend, this was a new experience for me. This was definitely my very first evening-alone-with-a-pup walk.

At first, with Harris tugging me along, and a few near spills on invisible patches of ice, I found myself grumbling about the burdens of dog ownership. It was cold, Harris was being a bit annoying, and I wasn't sure I felt totally safe. Yet, something urged me on: perhaps my strong desire to wear Harris out and avoid another accident, perhaps my equally strong desire to get past my discomfort and into a place of enjoying this unknown ritual.

And what do you know? As Harris started to tire out a little and tug at me less, I started to see the walk in a totally different way. Suddenly we were on a street that was familiar to me. Soon we were passing a hardware store, garden shop, ice cream place, and bakery that I had frequented a few years back when I lived closer to this part of the city.

It looked so different in this light, with a dog by my side. I was intrigued. I looked up at the sky, and saw beautiful moon-light-lined clouds moving fast. I suddenly was a lot less cold and in a lot less of a hurry.

I realized that this walk, this moment with Harris in this familiar yet unfamiliar place, was unique. Perhaps what I was really experiencing was the realization of the brevity of life, and the singular nature of every single moment in time. The nature of time itself. This Saturday in January of 2013 walking with Harris the dog would never happen again, and no walk would ever be just like this walk. Suddenly I understood the benefit of dog ownership.

Ahh, the philosophy of the walk. The deep/not-so-deep musings of the walker. This thought-pattern is comforting and familiar! And probably part of why I love walks!

Each walk is a little adventure, at its best allowing us to see our world with fresh eyes,

Winter Self Portrait

It's bone chillingly cold here, so I am taking thermal photos to remind myself of the warmth within.

I think they look pretty interesting.

Also:

My nostril has some heat.

I don't always look this surprised.

When I'm not confused by technology - aka 99% of the time - I am smiling. Therefore, this could also be called "Atypical Self Portrait."

Post-holiday

Thankfully, unlike other home-for-the-holidays, this visit was not the usual. I spent most of my break  just snoozing in various sunny spots around my childhood home, petting my parent's very cute pup, but mostly existing in a state of tuned-out/turned-off. And when I did leave the house, I avoided all questions from family friends regarding my love life. I certainly did chuckle to myself a few times as I reflected on my recent discovery.

I'm back home to my little blue house and an almost completely renovated kitchen. It's so beautiful and I cannot wait to cook something with quinoa in it very soon. (Or maybe an old favorite.) I imagine a lot of my happy moments will occur in this gorgeous space that so many individuals have helped me create. I bought this century home with the deep hope that I could be an owner who made it better. Try as I might, I can't put into words how it feels to be achieving this dream of mine. It's sunshine on my face. It's hearing the laughter of my beloved nephew. It's the first lilac bloom of the spring.

A week from tomorrow I start the last year of my twenties, and so I imagine the next few entries of this here blog might be a touch over-analytical. I am a bit of a goal-setter, a balancer of the small and big picture aspects of my life, and especially at the start of a new year I get really into looking backward and then looking forward.

Intention-setting starts soon.

First, though, a poem.

Year's End
by Ted Kooser

Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red feather on the wind.

Hello: Gratitude

Yesterday at work, as co-chair of the Culture Club, I hosted a table where colleagues could write cards of gratitude for each other.

It was amazing watching "grown-ups" come rushing up to the table with shouts of "GLITTER!" and then to watch them hyper-focus on their craft project, their grateful sentiments to each other.

A colleague of mine raised an eyebrow when I suggested we host a craft station, making the joyful response of the majority of my coworkers all the more satisfying. As a friend was saying to me, we think that "grown-ups" won't "participate" in cardmaking; we think that "gratitude" is a corny thing we talk about in grade school and Oprah magazine; but if nobody gives us an opportunity to do these things and express these feelings, of course we won't participate. I was happy to be part of providing an outlet for some real sincerity at work.

At the end of the day, my friend Paul and I were walking by the area where the craft table had been stationed. Pink glitter was all over the floor. Paul turns and says to me, "Glitter is your legacy."

Grateful for the small things.

Things To Do Besides Watch the "Debate"

• Feel no regret that you no longer own a TV.
• Chop up a bunch of crunchy vegetables to make this kickass salad.
• Oh, and while you are not wasting your precious time listening to two grown men interrupt and belittle each other, you might also have time to make this delicious soup.
• Visit Amazon to buy your favorite children's book for an upcoming baby shower.
• Pause to feel grateful for the kids coming into the world; then feel nervous for a little bit for the world they are being born into; and finally feel hopeful for how we can make the world better. 
• Spend just a few minutes counting your blessings: friends you love, places you've traveled, gardens you've built, the future you're actively creating.
• Logically it would now be wise to waste some time looking at orange shoes.
• End the night laughing about one of our more memorable past leaders. He sure said the darnedest things.
• It's a lot more funny in hindsight than it is in real time, eh?
 

 

Fall Nostalgia

Fall.

Or as I like to think of it: the sentimental season.

Wow, it sure has been an interesting few days around these parts. It doesn't take much to put my brain into complete nostalgic over-drive during autumn. This time of year I find myself thinking about a handful of topics in constant rotation: past relationships, growing older, and farming. 

Many of my relationships have started in the fall, so I tend to feel this strange mixture of hope - maybe I'll find someone great (and lasting) this fall - and utter, ultimate, jaded despair. Ha! How's that for honest? There are definitely relationship memories that are specific to this season - first kisses on hay bales, walks under a harvest moon with thermos' of steaming hot cider, the boy who introduced me to Neil Young, whiskey-inspired confessions in the pantry (yes pantry), and a million other mundane but important snapshots of past autumn loves.

I also think about the big life questions: who do I want to be? What do I mean when I say I want to be "useful" and "good" in the world? What is enough for me? What is success? Failure? How much is ego driving my desires? How much is fear holding me back? I spend a lot of time in the autumn sitting and thinking about how little I know. 

Farming is the strongest memory that visits me during the fall. Six years ago when I was farming, this was the point in time when I actually, finally felt like a farmer. I remember waking up while it was still pitch black outside and working up until the point it was dark again. I can almost feel the soreness of my muscles and the fatigue that you couldn't give in to because it was so close to being over - you were this close to the season's end. When I close my eyes, I see myself harvesting broccoli in an early season snow, wearing thick, leather gloves to protect my hands from the chill. I vividly recall pushing a cart full of carrots up a hill and marveling at how my arms were - for the first and only time in my life - stronger than my legs. I remember enjoying the harvest so much more during the fall than at any other point in the season- seeing the bounty as I visited the root cellar and thinking to myself "we created this." The crispness, vitality, and peace of that time is something that brings me great joy, but also haunts me a bit. The memories come flooding back to me and I'm not sure if I feel closer to it or further away. 

So, today, after discussing much of this with a dear, dear friend, I went out to my backyard and gathered the last bits of the season in the closest thing I've got to 'the farm.' I wanted to remember how I am trying - in my urban life after the farm - to not lose this part of myself:

It was a little pathetic, especially compared to the 20 pumpkins from last year and the hundreds on the farm, but I loved going around the yard and finding small treasures here and there. There are enough green tomatoes for a green tomato pie (don't knock it till ya try it), a handful of rainbow carrots, a few delicata squash, some last eggplant, a few onions, a couple of beets, and some awesome decorative gourds. Yes, I promptly arranged the gourds in a bowl in my house.

Then, I took the leaves from throughout my garden and stuffed them into one of the many house-warming gifts my Mom gave me when I bought old blue three years ago:

This reminds me so much of my childhood home, it tugs at my heart a little.

It's the sentimental season though, so it's only fitting.

Getting by

Coming back to work after a wonderful week away (more on that later) is a dose of reality I'm not all that fond of. I spent most of yesterday nursing a massive headache and crying inwardly about being back in my cube, staring at a computer, sitting in an uncomfortable chair with coworker gossip rattling in my brain. I wanted the loons, the open water, the peaceful quiet of the North.

Today I woke up and knew I was in for another depressing day if I didn't take matters into my own hands.

So I put on a favorite dress.

And those acorn buttons that Mom helped me convert into earrings.

And my red shoes.

And I went out into the garden as the sun was just coming up and everything was still covered in a layer of dew, and I harvested all sorts of things to bring in for my gossiping - but lovely - coworkers. Eggplant, grapes, melon, cabbage, kale, chard, and flowers.

And I brought the bag of homegrown treats with me on the bus, where it sat by my feet as I read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. The story I read was about a man who goes to Mars and then returns to Earth to realize how different it feels. Did he remember it incorrectly or did his new experience change it somehow, forever? I was struck by how the experience of leaving your life - even briefly - and returning to it is the same in this world as it is in a sci-fi story. In both cases we feel a little ungrounded when we return, the place we've just been quickly becoming distant memory despite our desperate grasping, and it's the little glimmers of happiness that are necessary for survival.

I Was Here

August Garden Tour

August is the best time for gardening. Or rather, August is the best time for enjoying the fruits of your labor! Now is the time of year when you can't go out into the garden without returning with an arm-full of produce. Before I break this down, here's a big picture view of my August garden:

Now, get ready to be hit with a crazy amount of photos. I'm about to break this down. This year my garden - with almost no TLC from me, mind you, except for a lot of mulching and very strategic watering - really is happier than it's ever been. There is probably some lesson in there.

Garden Tour: August 2012

1) Beans

My beans were destroyed by the bunnies, but I love that one plant survived and climbed up my improvised string trellis. Even if I only get 10 beans this year, at least they will be ten purple beans.

2) Squash/Squash-like Things

The photo on the left is delicata squash with a buckwheat flower poking through. I had planted a cover crop of buckwheat that the bunnies found too tasty to resist. This is the only buckwheat that survived. As you can see from the pumpkins and butternut squash on the right, these plants take up a lot of space. Lots of pumpkin and butternut squash blossoms, but none have started to turn into squash yet...hopeful...waiting...we've got till Halloween...

3) Cabbage

I'm known amongst friends as having a over-the-top love of slaw, but I'm afraid even I don't have the capacity for slaw that this year's garden promises. Check out that huge cabbage! Need to harvest it.

4) Greens

Kale and chard, with marigolds and cosmos throughout. Having lots of fresh greens is one of my favorite parts of having a backyard garden.

5) Eggplant

 

I tried a few new things with eggplant this year per some reading I did. First, I got a different variety, the long, slender Chinese eggplant. Next, I attached them to trellis' at a very early age so they would have support and possibly be able to hold more eggplant. Not sure if it's the variety or the support system, but this year is a bumper crop of eggplant. I make eggplant "chips" a few times a week (cut into rounds, sprinkle with olive oil and salt, and bake - turning over once - until crispy).

6) Herbs

Nasturtium is not an herb exactly, but I put it here because not only do the flowers taste great on salads, but the plant itself is a nice compliment to squash and many other garden plants. My little herb garden, surrounded by petunias, is really happy. That's new this year with bricks I found throughout my yard. Sage, rosemary, oregano, and parsley.

7) Raised bed: onions, beets, carrots. 

My onions are really happy (and ready to be harvested and cured for later use), but for some reason my beets did not do well this year. You can see a few of them going to flower, which I don't understand at all. I will try to harvest a few soon and see what's up under the ground. The carrots are a rainbow variety - orange, yellow, purple - and I cannot wait until they are ready!

8) Peppers

This is my first year of success with bell peppers! These are actually an orange variety, so you can see this guy has a few more weeks until ready.

9) Flowers

I love the way this sunflower is growing: a lot of small flowers off one big, main stalk. That's not typical for the variety I have sprouting up throughout my yard. The zinnias were new this year: I normally don't bother with annuals, but this is one of my favorites and they are so cheery. I decided to put them in rather unsightly areas throughout my yard and, as I hoped, they've really brightened those areas up. I also watched the world's most boring youtube video about zinnias and learned that if I keep breaking off the dead flowers they will keep blooming. I have three clusters throughout the yard and they have been blooming wildly for over a month!

10) Melon

I have two varieties of watermelon this year (although only one is pictured here). One is the classic variety, with the deep red center, and the other is a dwarf-yellow. I harvested one of the classic variety a few weeks ago and as I was cutting it open and saying to my roommate "Moment of truth" I was presented with a totally under-ripe, white interior. Very sad moment of truth. It's also made me unsure of when to harvest them. I picked one of the small yellow ones this week, cut it open and it was a beautiful sight! It was perfectly ripe, juicy, flavorful. That's more the type of moment of truth I like.

11) Tomatoes

I planted three heirloom varieties this year, and two are pictured here. I am not sure what accounted for my success with tomatoes this year, but this has been my best year ever. The last few years have been perhaps too wet, thus producing the dreaded "blossom end rot." This year it was very dry, with a few well placed rain storms, and just a few waterings from me. (Again, I didn't water much, I tend to expect a lot of my plants - they'll survive if they want to sort of thinking.) I think the dry heat made them very happy because I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with. I'm looking out my window now and see about a dozen big ones I could pick, not to mention the dozens of tiny, yellow cherry tomatoes. One thing I'm sold on: heirloom all the way. These are some of the most flavorful tomatoes I've ever eaten.

Okay, so now that I've rattled on and on about my garden, I better get out there and enjoy the day. I leave you with two "from a distance" views of the garden.

hello: guess who!

I have done so many notable things in the last few weeks, it's truly hard to know where to start.

I bought my first pair of hybrid spandex-"booty shorts" so that when I bike in a dress and flash people, it's just a touch less inappropriate. (I am questioning if this was the right place to start this list of "notables.")

I also discovered what is my new favorite salad recipe and have been telling everyone I know about this delicious creation. (Second time I've mentioned it in this blog, in fact.) The dressing alone is worth making again and again and putting on anything and everything. If my housemate hadn't been sitting nearby, I would have been tempted attempted to drink it like a savory smoothie.

My garden is finally starting to take off and I am finally starting to let go of the fact that a large portion of it continues to be bunny food. Let's be real: for me it's not as much about the harvest as it is about the experience of growing things. This week's notable crop: raspberries. (Also: bunnies don't give a sh** about raspberries.)

I went to a department store where I had what some might consider an "intimate moment" with Deb in "Intimate Apparel." I had been wearing the wrong bra size!! Now my girls are much more comfortable in the correct bra size and I have "getting felt up by a senior citizen" crossed off my bucket list.

Last week I stood very close to Amy Sedaris at an event and realized she is my spirit animal and her humor is perfect. I just love people who see the world through a very quirky, very honest lens. I am trying to figure out if snorting-laughter at a work event - where I'm technically "working" - is unprofessional. Oh well.

I continue to slowly read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Slowly because it's so good I want to make it last. Slowly because it's the perfect book about summer to read on a very hot summer night, on my front porch swing with a glass of lemonade, sweating bullets because it's 95 degrees at 8pm. If that sounds unpleasant, you misunderstood me. Reading it like this actually has added - or transported me to - the world of the book. The introduction, written by the author himself, in the "grand master edition" is one of the most beautiful pieces of honest reflection I have ever read. An excerpt:

What you have here in this book then is a gathering of dandelions from all those years. The wine metaphor which appears again and again in these pages is wonderfully apt. I was gathering images all of my life, storing them away, and forgetting them. Somehow I had to send myself back, with words as catalysts, to open the memories out and see what they had to offer.

So from the age of twenty-four to thirty-six hardly a day passed when I didn't stroll myself across a recollection of my grandparents' northern Illinois grass, hoping to come across some old half-burnt firecracker, a rusted toy, or a fragment of a letter written to myself in some young year hoping to contact the older person I became to remind him of his past, his life, his people, his joys, and his drenching sorrows.

I mean, come on now. Beautiful. 

Moving on from writing-so-beautiful-it-makes-me-come-alive, here's something mundane: I just made my first ever jello salad for an Independence Day party. Red-white-and-blue(berry) to be specific.

Speaking of Independence Day, I also made good on one of my promises to myself and, not to under emphasize this moment, one of the motivations behind this blog. I got a very new, very cute, very versatile, mint-green.....

Hello ugly robe. Independence day symbolic activities are my favorite!

mid-june inspirations

People who don't listen when others say "you can't."

The philosophy contained in this quirky video. This honestly feels like a spiritual text to me; a way to live our lives well.

The new Metric album and this fantastic studio session I got to witness.

The death of a childhood hero inspiring a new summer reading list. First up: Dandelion Wine. (RIP childhood hero.)

Kale season and associated recipes!